The bottoms may be spread over with apricot marmalade, and two stuck together just previous to being served, if approved of.
873. St. James’s Cake.—Put one pound of very fresh butter in a good-sized kitchen basin, and with the right hand work it up well till it forms quite a white cream; then add one pound powdered sugar, mix well, add ten eggs by degrees; put to dry a pound and a quarter of flour, which mix as lightly as possible with it; blanch and cut in slices two ounces of pistachios, two ditto of green preserved angelica, add two liqueur glasses of noyeau, two drops of essence of vanilla; whip a gill and a half of cream till very thick, mix lightly with a wooden spoon.
[LETTER NO. XVII]
THE DINNER-TABLE.
MY DEAR ELOISE,—I thank you for your kind compliment, but I have always been of opinion that the arrangements and serving of a dinner-table, have as much to do with the happiness and pleasure of a party as the viands which are placed upon it; this I had a practical proof of last week. Mr. B. and myself were invited to dine with Mr. D., a city friend, at Balham Hill; I had before met Mrs. D. at an evening party, at his partner’s, at Hackney, and knew little of her.
Dinner was served pretty punctually, only half an hour after time. On my entrance in the room, my first glance at the table showed me that there was a want of savoir-faire in its management: the plate, very abundant and splendid, was of so yellow a cast that it looked as if it were plated, and the cut glass was exceedingly dim. My first surprise was that there were no napkins, the next the soup plates were quite cold, which I have found often the case in other houses; after being served with fish, and waiting until it was cold for the sauce to eat with it, I was rather sceptical how the rest of the dinner would progress. After the first, the second course made its appearance, which was heavy and too abundant; the plain things were well done, but there was only one servant in the room for the whole party of fourteen, and from the strict formality of the table, it would have been a sacrilege to have handed your plate for any vegetables, or anything else you might require. There were four saltcellars, certainly very massive silver ones, at each corner of the table, and a beautiful cruet-frame in the centre; the hot dishes of this course, like the previous one, became cold and tasteless before being eaten, and during the time the servant was serving the champagne, all the plates were empty; in fact it was a good dinner spoilt. The wine drank with less goût than usual, and the long pauses between the courses made the formality appear still greater than it really was, and made you wish for the time to arrive for the cloth to be removed, which was not done, only the slips, a most awkward undertaking for one servant, and should never be practised unless having at least two.
About half an hour after the cloth was removed, and just as the conversation was being thawed from the freezing it received at the dinner-table, Mrs. D. and the ladies withdrew, and for an hour and a half we had to bear the insipid conversation of the drawing-room, the hissing urn on the tea-table bearing a prominent part. Several messages were sent from time to time to the dining-room that coffee was ready; and when at last the gentlemen came, two had had quite wine enough, which caused them to receive sundry angry looks from their wives who were present, and who were glad to get them into their carriages which were waiting, and right glad indeed was I when ours was announced.
This all happened, my dear Eloise, not from meanness; for if money could have purchased it nothing would have been wanting, but solely from want of management; and every one should think before they invite their friends to partake of their hospitality, if they know how to entertain them. Money of course will provide delicacies of all kinds, but to know how to dispose of those delicacies to the best advantage, that your friends may appreciate them, is what is sadly wanting in more than one house I visit.
A very excellent remark is made in Punch by Mr. Brown, in his Letters to a Young Man about Town, on the subject of great and little dinners. He says: “Properly considered the quality of the dinner is twice blest; it blesses him that gives, and him that takes; a dinner with friendliness is the best of all friendly meetings—a pompous entertainment, where no love is, is the least satisfactory.”